The day dawned upon the town of Armadillo, with Celestia’s exhausted sun peeking over the horizon to once more provide us with sustenance and warmth. I raised one of my forehooves up to wave at the sun, wishing our beloved princess of the sun a good morning. It was a little ritual I performed every morning. My house up on the hill had one of the best views of the sunrise, after all, it would be a shame to let it go to waste!
Once the light got too bright for me to look at, I turned around and stretched my back, ready for the day. I made my bed and slipped on a small satchel across the front of my chest.
I have a good feeling about today! I thought as I looked back at my blank, aquamarine flank. Some of the other fillies down in town had already started getting their cutie marks or… at least I was pretty sure they were, judging by how many parties had been going on lately. I hadn’t been invited to any yet, but then again none of the fillies and colts up on the hill had gotten theirs yet. Whenever that happened I would get invited for sure!
A white stallion walked out of my house and started on their way down the stone path that led to the town, his head held high and a pair of stuffed saddlebags hanging off his sides. The school teacher vest he wore made it more than obvious as to who he was: My father.
“Bye, Dad!” I shouted at him.
Zen Tangle turned around just as he reached the small gate that marked our front yard and turned around to wave at me.
“Bye, Lexi!” He said, beaming at me.
The stallion turned back toward the town and continued down the path. My eyes followed him along the path until he had dropped below the line of the hill, and even then I kept my sight fixed on the horizon until I stopped hearing the clattering of his teaching supplies. I sighed softly, wishing I could go to the town school instead of having to study at home.
I opened the little trapdoor on the floor of my room and climbed down from the attic, after which I carefully made my way down to the kitchen and dining area. I smiled when I spotted a small wooden figurine on the kitchen counter next to two plates of breakfast. I walked over to it and took the little figurine in my hooves, turning it over.
A small aquamarine unicorn with a purple mane, with two tiny gray dots for eyes. I chuckled at the memory of how long it had taken my dad to find a shade of paint that matched my eyes. But after mixing enough ash into the paint he had finally gotten it, and the result was remarkable! By all means, it was a perfect scale replica of me.
I looked over at the plate closest to the figurine and pulled it closer to one of the stools that stood next to the counter so I could reach it more easily. Homemade bread, fresh cheese, and a small tankard of light cider, the three pillars of a nutritious breakfast. I didn’t really get to finish enjoying my breakfast, however, as I heard the door to my parent’s bedroom open on the upper floor before I was done.
I quickly shoved the last piece of cheese into my mouth and grabbed the tankard to try and wash it down with my last couple of mouthfuls. The sound of somepony coming down the stairs made me pick up the pace, swallowing the last of the bitter liquid. I hiccuped slightly as I set the tankard back down, but I had been too slow.
“How many times do I need to tell you to use your horn?” My mother demanded.
My gaze dropped to the kitchen floor
“I- I’m sorry…” I muttered.
“You don’t have to be sorry, you have to be better. Use your horn, like a proper unicorn,” Mother said, gesticulating with a forehoof. Her white and gold, dress-like royal mage uniform flowed graciously around her as she moved.
I wanted to protest, tell her that I couldn’t just use my horn like she and my father could, but I knew it was no use. It hadn’t been any use for my entire life. The odds of a complaint magically working now were about as high as the odds of my horn somehow starting to work ‘properly’.
Not that there was anything wrong with it! Miss Honeycomb had looked it over down to the most minute detail dozens of times. Yet no matter how many times she told Mother that my horn was in perfect health, she just wouldn’t accept it. Granted, my inability to perform any magic did not help my case in the slightest. No matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t able to cast anything, not even telekinesis.
That had been the biggest alarm bell for my mother. Where all the other unicorn foals were almost born knowing how to wield it, my horn never once lit up throughout my entire foalhood. To my father, it was merely an issue of finding the right way to think about it, to Mother, I just wasn’t trying hard enough. Yet it didn’t matter how many exercises I did, how hard I focused on the very tip of my horn, or even how hard I tried to ‘roll my horn into a ball’… or whatever my father had said, I just… couldn’t.
This didn’t stop Mother from insisting, of course.
Once we had finished lunch, I was told to go out to the back of the house. Her little classroom, as she called it. I hated that room. My father had tried his damndest to make it as welcoming as possible, it was meant to be a simple storage room, but it had been converted into my very own private learning area.
On the left side wall stood a bookcase that Father had made out of an old oak tree. Its frame had been covered in intricate carvings, featuring a wide array of animals and landscapes. All of his efforts, however, had sadly been reduced to holding up the dusty tomes of magic theory books that Mother had made me memorize. A single desk dominated the center of the room, Father had gotten it from his school after one of its legs snapped in half. He had repaired it completely and put it here so that I could at least somewhat feel like how the townsfillies did. I couldn’t get angry at him for trying, but I also couldn’t help but feel saddened at how much it reminded me that I could not go to school with the others.
“The fundamentals of the arcane,” Mother stated, pulling a book from the bookshelf. It was the most recent addition to the collection of torturous tomes, and the only one I couldn’t recite from cover to cover by heart. “I want you to stay here and read this until lunchtime, is that clear?” She added.
“Yes, Mother,” I replied.
“Good,” The unicorn said, leaving the book on my desk and walking out of the small classroom.
I sighed deeply and lowered my gaze to the large leatherbound tome in front of me. Its title was embroidered into the middle of the cover with a glistening golden string. Wish they put more pictures on book covers… I thought absentmindedly, my gaze drifting over to the bookshelf at my side. My eyes fell on the red spine of An Introduction to Magic Theory, I liked that book.
I looked over my shoulder and made sure that Mother was gone before hopping off my seat and walking over to the bookcase, taking the small red volume out. I sat on my hooves and looked at the book, not that I didn’t intend to read the one Mother had set out for me, I just… wanted to feel a little better.
The book’s covers were made of cloth instead of leather, and it had been used as a canvas. Truthfully, it wasn’t red, it had merely been painted red. The front cover had the book’s title, written in much the same manner as it had been on the spine, with a beautiful depiction of a starry night sky underneath it. Thin, careful lines had been painted between the shining stars, making the constellations pop out. Their names were written out underneath them as well, all in the author’s very meticulous style.
If there was one thing that made me love earth pony writers more than unicorns or pegasi, it had to be their lettering. While unicorns flexed their magical abilities by making every single letter into some extravagant collection of unneeded lines and swirls, and pegasi used their wings to write in a flowy, continuous line that warped and twisted to form words, earth ponies just did it the same way they did most things. Every letter was all but chiseled into the parchment, the lines perfectly straight and clear to the point where even I didn’t struggle with reading them.
“Come on, Lexi, you can’t waste time,” I told myself, sighing softly and putting the book back into the bookcase.
I walked over to the desk and sat back down, opening the book to the chapter I had left marked from the previous day. Mother came back a while later to check if I was reading, giving a satisfied grunt when she saw that I had read through an entire chapter.
It was… hard. I wasn’t good at reading, and the unicorn writer’s letters were especially prone to swapping around in my views, leading to me needing to re-read some words up to five times.
“Fantasia! Food is ready!” Mother called from inside the house.
“Coming!” I shouted back, grabbing the book’s bookmark and pulling it onto the pages.
Lunch was simple, nothing more than some warm stew. Mother gave me her usual disappointed stare as I sat on the stool and grabbed the tankard with my forehooves. She asked me about the book with short, fast questions. I couldn’t really tell if my answers were good enough, but I had read the same concepts enough times to know them by heart, and Mother knew that too.
After the meal, I was once again led to the small room behind the house, like a prisoner marching to the gallows. Mother followed closely behind, holding a large green quill in her magic, which she set down on the desk.
“You already know what you have to do.” Mother stated, taking a seat in front of the desk.
I sighed and looked at the feather.
“Yes, Mother,” I said.
I hated weekdays. At least during the weekends, I could rely on Father to step in and help me if Mother got too angry. But during the week? All I could do was wait it out as best I could. There had been a time when I tried, really tried. I had even pushed myself so far that I would pass out. But now I had just made peace with the fact that it would never be enough.
Nonetheless, I lit up my horn and concentrated on the feather. The light around my horn wasn’t much more than a soft glow, barely noticeable if looked at in the daytime. Nothing at all like the almost tangible, amorphous blob of energy that enveloped a ‘proper unicorn’s horn, as Mother had so graciously declared on many occasions.
I tried to ‘reach out’ with my magic, but I just couldn’t feel anything. My eyes screwed shut in concentration, trying my damnedest to make the feather move, but it was no use. Might as well be asking me to move a fifth leg! I thought.
“Lift the feather, Fantasia,” Mother demanded. “Wrap it with telekinesis and lift it off the desk,”
“Yes, Mother,” I repeated, not wanting to waste my breath on a useless explanation.
My horn started to hurt slightly. It was a dull pain, as if I had dipped it into water that was just slightly too hot. I ran through my usual approaches, trying to visualize the magic as jaws closing around the feather, then as a blanket wrapping over and under it, and finally, as a little ghostly pegasus pulling it up with its little semi-transparent wings... But nothing worked.
It didn’t matter what I tried to imagine the magic as, it didn’t change the fact that it just wasn’t there. I could imagine that I had a parrot sitting on my desk instead of a single feather, but no matter how hard I imagined it, I couldn’t reach out and touch it.
“I am waiting,” Mother said, tapping her forehoof against the floor.
“I… can’t!” I muttered, letting the magic fade from my horn.
The older mare huffed.
“How can you not do something as simple as picking up a feather? Even unicorns with broken horns can do it!” She complained, looking down at me. “Pick. It. Up.”
Why could she not understand? We had done this stupid dance for years now! Why could she not see that I just… couldn’t. I looked up pleadingly at her, but I got no sympathy from her eyes.
The tapping of her hoof against the floor was starting to grate on my nerves. My head twitched slightly as I shied away from the noise, flattening my ears against the sides of my head.
Tap tap.
I had also told her about how that tapping made it impossible for me to concentrate. But she once again didn’t seem to care, even scolding me for ‘talking back to her’.
Tap tap tap.
Focus, Lexi, maybe try some other way of thinking about it. I thought, racking my brain for ideas on how I could-
Tap tap.
Ugh! Why can’t she just stop that incessant-
Tap tap.
My eyes fluttered open, staring at the feather with growing frustration. It was as if it were taunting me, making me look like a fool because I couldn’t even grasp the simplest spell. I had to show them, I had to-
Tap.
“STOP THAT!” I shouted, sitting on my haunches and covering my ears with my forehooves. The sudden silence immediately made a cold chill run up my spine. I had done it, I had talked back to her, it was over.
Not thinking, I turned tail and ran, slamming into the classroom door before Mother could hold it closed with her magic.
My hooves thumped on the grass when I jumped out of the doorway and onto the grass outside. Mother shouted something from behind me, but I wasn’t listening. I galloped through my house’s wide backyard, heading for the treeline. I would be safe there… or at least I would be able to enjoy some peace.
I started panting heavily, feeling how my stubby legs burned from the strain. My gallop slowed to a canter, and then finally settled into a trot. The oak trees around me stood like pillars in a gigantic castle, with their foliage creating a tall ceiling of leaves. I wanted to stop, but I had to keep going… even if I didn’t really know where. I had to-
“Gah!” I squeaked when my right forehoof sank up to my knee in ice-cold water. I launched myself out of the water, collapsing onto my back. My legs continued to swing around wildly as if I were still running on land.
Once I stopped moving, however, the exhaustion from my run crashed into me like a tidal wave, completely snuffing out any energy in my legs. I let out a long, drawn-out breath, and looked up at the sky through the treetops. The light blue had ever so slightly started to darken, but I wasn’t concerned at all, I couldn’t have run that far on my stubby legs.
I raised my head and looked around, passing over the many twisting oak trunks and the occasional white birch tree. It was nice to see such different trees mixing together into a lovely forest. The thin, straight birches acting as a nice contrast to the thick, twisted oaks. It was amazing how despite their differences they could still coexist, and not just that, but also serve as a roof for all the animals in the woods.
The more attention I paid, the more things I noticed. A large squirrel ran through one of the treetops, its fluffy tail sticking out to me. Under its paws I also saw a long line of ants, dutifully marching single-file while carrying leaf chunks.
What a funny little creature. I thought as I followed the ant trail with my eyes. It went all the way down the treetrunk and into the floor, where the small insects had blazed a miniature path through the blades of grass. The way they all moved, following the exact same path, was all but hypnotizing.
I flipped onto my belly and crawled closer to the ants, following the trail. The bugs seemed completely unbothered by what to them must’ve been a monstrous figure looming over their trail, and they continued to dutifully march down the path.
I wonder if that’s what the royal guards looked like… I thought as I observed the almost militaristic parade that passed by my hooves. Some… odd sensation washed over me, like a cold chill.
My right ear fluttered around wildly, picking up strange noises. I turned my head to the right, feeling as if something were pressing against my cheek to try and keep me from turning my head. That can’t be right… I thought as I finally made out what the noises were. It was as if something sharp were dragging across a wooden board, which was strange, since there were no wooden boards out in the middle of the woods.
I shook my head, feeling the strange sensation disappear. Just another one of those moments. I thought, rolling my eyes. I had had those little chills for as long as I could remember, but it was never more than an odd feeling.
The frown that my face had warped into quickly softened when I looked back down at the ants and continued to crawl beside their trail. I remained crouched while I followed the insects, chuckling slightly as I realized that I was probably acting like the cats in the town did when they were hunting for mice. Unlike the cats, however, I didn’t plan on killing these little critters, merely to observe.
I eventually came to a small patch of dirt at the base of an oak tree, where a small anthill lay. My head cocked to the side as I watched them, marveling at their coordination. Despite there being dozens, maybe hundreds of ants, they didn’t seem to bump into each other at all, as if they were following some invisible string.
It's like they have little roads that they follow… I thought, absentmindedly patting at the satchel on my chest.
A small notepad and a roll of cloth fell out of the pack and onto the grass. I picked up the notepad in my forehooves and lied down on the floor, grabbing the little cloth roll and unfurling it. A small stick with a piece of charcoal rolled out, which I took into my teeth. While humming a melody, I got to work on drawing the little trails on the notepad. I started by sketching out the shape of the anthill, nice and simple, but trying to keep the scale right. Next, I picked an ant at random, pressed the charcoal onto the page, and followed its path, marking the insect’s route along the hill.
I repeated the process several times, changing the style of line with every new ant. Dotted lines, slightly swirly lines, lots of small lines… anything I could think of. Once I ran out of ideas, however, I rolled my little charcoal holder back into its cloth and stashed it into my satchel. The drawing was slightly shaky, It was understandable, of course, since my tired forehooves weren’t really stable when compared to my desk back home.
I need to draw this on a bigger page when I get home. I thought, smiling at the swirling patterns I had sketched. It was chaotic, but in the chaos there was… order. It was, simply put, beautiful and elegant. Had the ants drawn those paths themselves? Or had they been ordained by their queen? Perhaps neither, perhaps they had simply stumbled across them and followed them, much like I had done with the trail they had blazed through the forest floor.
My gaze moved upwards once more, where I noticed that the darkening sky had slowly but surely started to shift into a deep orange color. That was definitely not good. Stuffing the notepad into my satchel, I got up and started to look around, trying to figure out which direction I had come from. All I saw, however, was the twisting and turning path of the ants which I had followed. There was no way I would reorient myself now.
Think, Lexi, where’s Celestia? I thought, trying to keep myself from panicking. I looked up again and spotted the brightest part of the forest’s roof, where the sun was undoubtedly hiding in its last travel before the night came. The sun sets to the east… so home has to be… this way? I wondered, turning to where I guessed north lay.
I started walking, silently praying that I had chosen the right way. I didn't recognize any of the woods around here, but then again, they did kind of look the same. My legs were starting to get sore as the strain of the run weighed down on them, but I still kept going, the last thing I wanted was to be out here at night.
Slowly but surely, I started to get scared. I tried not to, but the seemingly infinite forest was starting to wear down my resolve. I wasn’t fully in panic’s clutches, but I could absolutely feel its jaws closing in around me. The darkening sky did not help in the slightest. The very same treetops that had been so picturesque when I walked into the woods, now became oppressing and dark, snuffing out what little light Celesta’s sun still provided.
“Lexi?” A voice shouted from somewhere to my right. “Leeeeexi?” It shouted again.
“Dad?” I shouted.
“Lexi! Stay there!” Zen Tangle shouted back.
The sound of hooves approaching made my ears swivel. And the white shape of my father rushed out from behind an oak tree moments later. He darted towards me and scooped me off the ground, wrapping me in a tight hug.
“Oh Lexi, I was worried sick!” Tangle exclaimed, rocking me from side to side in the hug.
“Dad!” I shouted, wrapping my own forehooves around the stallion’s neck.
“What are you doing out here?” He demanded, but his voice was filled with more concern than anger.
“I- I- Mother just…” I stuttered, but I didn’t have to say anything more, as Father had already understood it from my tone alone.
He hugged my head, using one of his forehooves to press my left cheek against his chest. He gave me a soft kiss on the top of the head, making my ears twitch a little. When his forelegs opened to let me free, I looked up into his eyes and got a warm smile in response.
“I’ve told you to just come to the schoolhouse if she gets too mean,” He said, keeping his voice calm.
“I know…” I muttered into his chest. “I’m sorry…” I added, lowering my head in shame.
“It’s okay, Lexi,” He said, pulling my head away and holding onto my shoulders. “Come on, we need to go home, I’ll make sure nothing happens to you,” He said, smiling at me.
“Heh… thanks…” I muttered, smiling back at him.
“Don’t worry about it, do you want me to carry you home? Or are you ‘too old for piggyback rides’?” He asked with a wink, mimicking my voice as closely as he could.
“I don’t sound like that!” I pouted, chuckling.
“Sure you do! Especially… when…” He trailed off, raising his head.
I looked up at his face, where I noticed that his brow was furrowed and his jaw clamped shut. His eyes were wide open, focused on something behind me. I could feel the stallion’s heart start beating faster within his chest as his breathing became shallower.
“Lexi, sweetie, listen to me,” He said, his voice shaky.
“D- dad? What’s wrong?” I asked, trying to turn my head around only to have it grabbed by Tangle’s forehooves.
“Shh, shh, look at me,” He said, pulling my head up to stare into his eyes. “I want you to run back home right now, it’s directly behind me, do not stop running, okay?” He ordered, keeping his voice stern but still having an inkling of fear in it.
“Y- yes?” I said, desperately wanting to know what was wrong.
A hoarse, nasally breathing sound came from somewhere behind me, like an unnatural gurgle, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on point.
“Go!” Tangle shouted, throwing me to the side.
I just barely managed to put my forehooves in front of me before hitting the ground. Almost as soon as my head was let go, however, I immediately turned around to look at what had been standing behind me.
It was… horrifying. A mangled jumble of dry, cracked leather wrapped around limbs that jutted out at unnatural angles. Something that looked similar to a cow’s head hung off the left side of the monster, its dislocated jaw hanging low and revealing an ominous turquoise glow coming from within. On its other side hung a nearly complete cow leg, whose hoof had grown out far longer than it should have, turning it into a spiraled spike. A horrid, writhing mass of intestines was wrapped around the ‘center’ of the creature, pulsating in a hypnotic yet nauseating fashion.
The thing’s entire body was covered in jagged crystal spikes, all with the same turquoise color as the glow coming from inside the head’s mouth, and it was getting closer. The legs were, much like the rest of it, made out of seemingly mismatched and mangled parts of a cow, held together by sinew and muscle that appeared to have been haphazardly tied onto the bones as opposed to growing in anything resembling a natural order.
Tangle took a step forward and to the side, placing himself between me and the creature.
“Begone!” He shouted, but the fear in his voice made it a lot less impactful.
The monster lumbered forward, dragging its right ‘leg’ across the ground. Tangle’s horn lit up, and a matching glow wrapped around a fallen branch on the ground. I watched in horror as my father swung the branch at the head that hung off the creature’s side. The branch splintered on impact, showering the side of the monster with pieces of wood, but it didn’t seem to have done anything at all.
Without as much as a grunt, the horrifying mass twisted around, shoving it’s single, twisted claw forward with blinding speed. Tangle managed to duck, narrowly avoiding having his neck torn open by the corkscrew-like claw. He wasn’t fast enough, however, and the monster managed to scratch his forehead with the claw.
“Dad!” I shouted when I saw several drops of crimson blood splatter the grass below.
“Lexi! Get out of here!” He shouted, firing a beam of magic directly into the creature.
The beam didn’t have any effect whatsoever. I watched as it washed over the creature and made the crystals closest to the impact area glow ominously. This time around, however, the creature did respond. The cow head’s jaw unhinged completely, letting a long fleshy tube extend out from within. The tip of the tube was coated in dozens of serrated teeth which flung droplets of a sickly green substance onto the ground.
“Wh-?” Tangle shouted as the strange appendice darted toward him.
My father screamed loudly as the tip of the tube wrapped around the middle of his left foreleg like an elephant’s trunk. The monster’s writhing new limb arched upwards, pulling Tangle clean off his hooves and throwing him to the side. I watched as my father soared through the air, his foreleg having been turned into a bloodied mess, before he thumped onto the floor some distance away.
“Dad!” I shouted, taking a couple of steps towards him.
I stopped in my tracks when the cow head that hung off the side of the monster turned to ‘stare’ directly at me, the writhing, teethed tentacle retracting into its gaping jaws. My hooves and my heart stopped dead in their tracks as the icy jaws of panic clamped down on my throat. I took a fearful step back when the monster dragged one of its legs towards me, my breathing becoming shallow.
“Lexi! Run!” Tangle shouted, raising his head and firing a magical beam at the creature’s back.
The magic struck the monster in the side, on a spot where very few crystals dotted its skin. A chunk was blasted off the creature by the attack, flopping onto the floor alongside a spurt of thick, coagulated blood, but the rest of its mass seemed unamused by the damage. It turned slowly around to look at Tangle before lumbering toward him.
My father’s eyes went wide, but he collapsed fully onto the floor when he tried to get off his side with his wounded leg. I looked on in helpless desperation as the monster approached Tangle, my legs feeling as if they were frozen solid. I had to do something!
I lowered my head and focused on my horn, contorting my face with effort as I tried to squeeze magic out. Please! I pleaded. Give me something!
But no magic came, not even a single spark.
A new sound reached my ears, causing me to open my eyes wide and look behind me for the source. It was the unmistakable sound of galloping, accompanied by a chorus of metallic creaking noises.
From around one of the large oaks came a large pony clad in the golden armor of the royal guard. To his side hung a long white spear with a swirling sky-blue pattern that stretched from the tip to the harness that held the weapon steady in the pony’s gallop. The copper-colored mustache that bounced with every strike of the ironclad pony’s hooves against the ground made it immediately clear as to who it was. Gallant Arret, the guard of Armadillo.
Arret jumped at the monster, biting down on the harness strap across his chest and pulling it free as his forehooves left the ground. The tip of the spear struck true, jamming almost a leg’s length into the monster as it broke free of the harness with a click. The stallion continued on his arch through the air, flying past the monster and rolling onto the floor before springing back up to his hooves. The creature actually staggered back, impaled by the spear, and turned to look at the newly arrived guardspony.
The stallion in question looked back at Tangle and then shot a glance at me before unsheathing the small blade that hung on his other side and running toward the monster again. He delivered a quick slash across its midsection before ducking a strike from the hoof spike. The creature’s strange, toothed tentacle shot out again, but it slammed uselessly against the pony’s golden helmet. Arret jumped back and started to sidestep around the monster, trying to make it face away from me and my father.
Still remaining eerily silent, the crystal-covered being lumbered toward the armored stallion, swinging the hoof spike with reckless abandon. None of the attacks came even close to connecting, however. Arret eventually dug his hooves into the ground and whipped his head to the side, stabbing the creature a little distance under the cow head. The monster’s dark blood oozed from the wound when the guard’s blade retreated.
Arret let out a bombastic chuckle around the hilt of his sword before stepping back a few times and whipping his sword around to flick the blood off. After sheathing the weapon, the stallion looked up at the monster and raised his voice.
“Come!” He shouted.
The monster threw itself at the stallion, whipping its hoof and tentacle around in a frenzy. Arret continued to backstep, staying outside the creature’s reach. Its attacks started to become slower and more desperate, with most of its attempts to hurt the guard missing entirely even without him moving. It tried one last swipe with the hoof claw, missing entirely and collapsing onto the ground. I noticed how the crystals lost all their glow, becoming an opaque bluish-gray.
Arret took a tentative step forward, poking the creature with the tip of a foreleg and then remaining still for a few seconds. Once he had seen that the monster remained still, he immediately ran over to me.
“Young Lexicon!” He exclaimed, his light blue eyes full of concern. “Are you alright?” He asked, putting one of his armored forehooves on my shoulder.
“I- I- yeah…” I managed to say. “My dad!” I shouted, looking over at where he lay, still struggling to get up.
“Professor Tangle, you’ve been injured!” The guard stated, running over to the fallen stallion.
“Arret… am I ever glad to see you,” My father said weakly, smiling at the approaching earth pony.
“Save your strength,” Arret answered, slipping off a satchel that hung over his flank.
The earth pony opened the small bag and took out a small brown bottle, which he uncorked with his teeth. A small plume of black smoke started to pour out the neck of the vial, which made the guard cough loudly before he could turn the bottle over on top of my father’s injured leg. A thick, viscous drop of bright pink liquid oozed out and onto my father’s wound, making him hiss.
I walked closer to the two stallions, watching in awe as Arret’s dextrous forehooves wrapped my father’s leg tightly with bandages. Once he had finished dressing the wound, the guard got up and looked around before speaking again.
“We need to head back to the town before something… worse catches our scent,” Arret stated. “Can you stand?” He asked my father.
Tangle shakily rose to his hooves, gritting his teeth as his wounded leg took some of his weight.
“I should be fine… that stuff is magical,” Father said, looking at the vial that Arret was stashing back in his satchel.
“A shame that it reeks so much,” The guard answered, smiling as he slipped the bag over his flank again.
Tangle chuckled and nodded.
“It really does.” He said before turning to me, “Come on, Lexi, let’s go home,” He said, smiling.
Gallant Arret led us all the way back to the village. We were fortunate enough to not run into anything else along the way, as nightfall had fully set in. A small group of ponies had gathered just outside of town, with the one closest to us being clad in a white and gold robe, my mother.
“Fantasia Lexicon! I am most disappointed!” She boomed as soon as she saw me. “Running off like that! You had everypony worried sick!”
Her eyes went wider when she spotted the bandage around Tangle’s foreleg. She ran to him, sitting on the ground and bringing her forehooves up to hold the stallion’s face.
“Tangle! What happened, dear?” Mother said, her voice taking on an uncharacteristically kind note. “I was so worried… Are you alright? Does it hurt?” She asked, lifting the stallion’s foreleg.
“I’m fine, Grim, Arret found us in time,” Tangle answered, chuckling.
Mother’s face morphed into a scowl when she heard the nickname my father had given her, but it slowly relaxed while she chuckled.
“Thank you, Sir Arret,” Mother said, bowing her head at the guard.
The earth pony straightened himself out as if struck by lightning, hitting his chest piece with one of his armored hooves in a salute. Even his slightly droopy mustache seemed to straighten out.
“Thanks to you for staying back to guard the village, ma’am,” He stated.
“No need for formalities, Gallant, I am truly thankful for your help,” Mother said, staring at the armored pony.
The stallion relaxed his posture slightly, with the tips of his mustache dropping back down to their normal height.
“Yes ma’am- err… Miss Grimoire,” He stuttered before turning to address the other gathered ponies. “I shall be in the guard tower should anypony else need me!” He announced before setting off towards the center of town.
As soon as the guard left, Mother whirled around to face me again, her eyes blazing with fury.
“You are going to head home and go directly to bed, is that clear?” She said, stomping the ground for emphasis.
“Dear, don’t you-“ Tangle started, but his mouth closed again when Mother raised a forehoof.
“Yes, Mother,” I muttered before turning around towards the hill and starting to walk, keeping my head low.
My parents stayed behind and talked while I dragged my hooves down the path back home. Just like Mother had said, I walked in, climbed up the stairs, and went to my room. By now, the rush of the encounter had faded almost completely, and I flopped onto my bed sniffling and shaking.
What if something happened to him? I thought, thinking about my father. Or, well, something worse?
Why had I ran away? How had I been so stupid? The one thing everypony was taught was that you did not leave the town near nightfall unless it’s absolutely necessary.
The memory of my little escapade made me think of that little anthill. How come they don’t have to fear the night? I thought as I patted my chest for the satchel. Sitting up on my bed, I brought the small notepad out and looked over at my little desk, where a much larger journal sat.
I took the notepad in my mouth and walked over to the desk, dropping it next to the journal and flipping it open to the page where I had traced the paths of the ants. My forehoof lowered under the desk and started to drag along its underside until it touched a small door hidden just out of view. I opened the little secret compartment that my father had added to the desk and took out a roll of cloth.
While Mother vehemently refused to let me write with anything other than a quill and ink like a ‘proper’ unicorn, Tangle had always made it a point to misplace some of the charcoal that he used to teach the townsponies how to write. Inside the roll were two small bars of charcoal, one of which had been broken into several fragments. I took the little stick out of my satchel and dropped the minuscule bit of charcoal that remained on its tip into the cloth on my desk, replacing it with a brand new fragment.
Once I had done this, I got to work on drawing the ant trails on my journal, trying to keep the scale as close to my sketch as possible. The work was nice, it helped me ignore my roaring stomach. I smiled around the stick in my mouth while I made that little charcoal shard dance over the journal. Sure, maybe using an entire page for it was a little excessive, a paper page, no less, but I could always just ask Father to make some more.
My concentration was broken, however, when several loud knocking sounds echoed off the trapdoor that led into the house. I spat out the stick and fumbled with it for a moment, trying to roll it up with the charcoal bars so that I could hide it, but my frantic movements stopped when I heard Father’s voice come from behind the door.
“Lexi, it’s me,” He said, his voice calm.
I let out a relaxed sigh, getting off my stool and walking over to the trapdoor. Tangle’s smiling face met me on the other side, his horn wrapped in magic and levitating a small plate that held a piece of bread and some vegetables along a tankard full of some transparent liquid.
“Food is important,” He said with a soft chuckle, climbing into my room and setting the plate and tankard down on my desk. My head lowered when I noticed how badly he was limping.
“I… I’m sorry…” I muttered.
Tangle turned around and stared at me with a concerned look.
“It’s okay, sweetie” He said, walking up to me and putting his good forehoof on my shoulder. “Your mother can be a little much sometimes,”
“She hates me…” I whimpered, sniffling.
My father wrapped his forehoof around my head and pressed me against his chest.
“She doesn’t hate you, Lexi, she just has… a weird way of showing that she loves you,” He said.
“That’s… that’s so dumb…” I complained.
I felt a chuckle go up my father’s chest before he spoke again.
“Maybe, but it’s just the way your mother is,” He said, letting go of me and looking down into my eyes. “You should eat before your vegetables get cold,” He added.
I nodded and walked up to my desk, digging my muzzle into the plate. Father didn’t mind me using my hooves to eat, a much welcome improvement over Mother’s response. With blinding speed, I devoured the food with gusto, taking sips of cold water from the tankard as I did. I was starving.
“Was it that good?” Tangle asked, chuckling.
“It really was!” I chirped back, smiling.
My father smiled back and walked over to the window through which I had waved at him that very morning. He flopped down onto the small cushion that rested next to the window, wincing slightly when he moved his bandaged foreleg.
“Are you okay?” I asked, looking at his leg with concern.
“Yeah… yeah… just stings a little…” He said, looking down at the leg for a moment before looking up at me. “Hey… Why don’t you paint something on my other leg?”
My ears perked up at his words, followed by a grin.
“Sure! What would you like?” I asked, looking for the small paint box I kept on the side of my desk.
“Something pretty, so ponies tomorrow look at it instead of these ugly bandages,” Tangle replied, stretching out his good foreleg.
I balanced the paint box over my back and walked up to the white unicorn, setting it down next to him. Taking the paintbrush in my mouth, I dipped it into one of the small vials in the box and got to work on painting my father’s leg. Not having any particular pattern in mind, I was satisfied with simply letting the brush dance over his coat. The stallion chuckled slightly at the tickling sensation as his coat became dyed.
After the better part of an hour, my work was complete. Tangle’s leg was covered in a multicolored pattern that wrapped around it much like the swirl on Arret’s spear. Unlike the guard’s weapon, however, I had decorated the parts in between the swirls lines with smaller spirals and little stars.
“All… done…” I said, yawning.
“It’s beautiful,” Tangle said, smiling.
I carefully closed the box after cleaning off the brush and set it next to the cushion before climbing up next to my father. I rested my head against his side listening to the rhythmic sounds of his breathing. My eyelids got heavier, making it a real chore to keep my eyes open.
“I love you…” I muttered, nuzzling the stallion’s side.
“I love you too,” My father replied as I finally faded off to sleep.
My eyes fluttered open hours later as the very first rays of Celestia’s sun started to peek over the horizon. I had been firmly tucked into my bed, wrapped up in a nice and cozy blanket. I yawned loudly, stretching out my forelegs before getting up and walking over to the window like I did every morning to wave the sun hello.
“Good morning, Princess,” I muttered, smiling at the horizon.
I turned around to look at my desk, where I noticed that my drawing supplies had all been put away carefully, with my journal closed and left in the middle of the desk. A piece of paper sat on the journal, drawing my attention. I immediately recognized my father’s writing as I picked up the paper.
‘Looked at your drawing, baeutiful’ I read, smiling. My brow quickly furrowed, and I looked back down at the paper to read it again.
“Beau-ti-ful,” I said out loud, trying to see the letters in my mind as I pronounced each syllable with exaggerated mouth movements.
I grumbled, shaking my head softly before slipping the satchel over my chest again and walking over to the trapdoor. The house below was mostly silent save for the telltale sound of Tangle’s snoring coming from my parent’s room. I peeked into it curiously, seeing that my father was sprawled out over the mattress, fast asleep. Mother was nowhere to be found, but since I couldn’t hear anything on the bottom floor it was likely that she had gone into town to pick up things at the market for my father.
Perfect. I thought, grinning. An idea had been brewing in my mind ever since the monster attack the day before. I wanted to go back and look at it some more.
I grabbed a small piece of bread from the pantry and stashed it into my satchel before carefully opening the back door of my house, making sure to not let it creak. Once free, I turned towards the treeline and walked right in.
Staying in the woods just deep enough to not be spotted while still being able to see the town, I made my way around to the spot where Arret, my father, and I had come into the town the night before. Good thing my coat is greenish. I thought, remembering the stories my father used to tell of when he tried to sneak around as a colt only to always get spotted by his white coat. Eventually, I reached the right spot, where I turned around towards the woods and took a deep breath.
“This is a bad idea…” I muttered to myself, looking back at the town. “...But I’ll never get the chance to look at a monster this close again…”
With a quick head shake, I faced the woods and started to walk.
The daytime definitely made the forest a lot more inviting than it had been the night before. The knowledge that Celstia’s radiant light was there to scare all the monsters into their hiding holes only added to my confidence as I followed the still-fresh trail of Arret’s armored hooves in reverse, keeping my head low and close to the ground.
I eventually came to the place where the fight had taken place. The strange cow monster still lay in the exact same spot where it had been felled, completely untouched.
“Interesting…” I muttered. I would’ve expected some wild animal to make use of the large pile of meat, but it looked completely and utterly untouched.
My eyes focused on the crystal that my father had shot the day before, seeing that it was the only one that stood out among the rest. Where the others were almost completely gray, this crystal held a little bit of a blue shine to it. My forehoof instinctively raised, pressing against the crystal. It was cold to the touch, as if it truly were nothing more than a small crystal.
With a soft crack, the crystal detached from the monster’s corpse, falling onto the grass below. I eyed it curiously before taking it into my forehooves and dropping it into my satchel. There would be time to look at it later, I had to make the most out of the window I had before my parents started to wonder where I was.
I took my notebook and charcoal out again. I made a quick sketch of the dead monster, making especially sure to mark down the sizes and angles of the different body parts so that I could draw it fully when I got home. My anxiety increased with every second that passed by. Once I was satisfied with the sketch, I put the notepad back in my satchel and whirled around, heading back to the town at a brisk trot.
Eventually, I got back to my home, where I made sure to take a few moments to catch my breath before getting closer. Wouldn’t do me any good to look like I had just ran all the way here from the middle of the woods! Before I managed to fully collect myself, however, the back door flew open to reveal a very concerned Zen Tangle.
“Lexi!” He exclaimed before letting out a relaxed sigh. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?” He asked, a little bit of concern bleeding back into his voice.
“Oh uhh… no?” I offered, smiling at him.
My father raised an eyebrow and stared directly at me.
“You didn’t run off, did you?” He asked.
“I- I… No! Of course not!” I stuttered, feeling my ears twitch wildly.
Tangle looked at my telltale ears with an unamused expression. He didn’t say anything, however, just shook his head slightly and started to walk around to his little workshop. I followed him and peeked into the room, seeing the many vats that he used to make his paper.
“Do you need any help?” I asked, cocking my head to the side and smiling.
“Hmm? No, no, I can move these around just fine,” Tangle said, his horn flaring to life and wrapping around the many contraptions in his little workshop. “Besides, your mother wants you to finish reading the new book she got for you,” He added with a smile.
I gave a defeated sigh, my ears drooping slightly.
“Hey, it’s okay if you don’t feel like it,” The stallion said. “You can read it in the afternoon,” He offered.
“Thanks…” I muttered, watching as he absentmindedly rubbed his bandaged leg.
A smile parted my face when I saw the patterns I had painted on his leg, but my thoughts went back to the monster I had just sketched out, and the crystal in my saddlebags. An idea for what I could do to stay busy without having to go study sparked in my mind, and I opened my mouth to speak again.
“Since I’m not going to- er… Since I’m going to read the book in the afternoon…” I stuttered, keeping my eyes fixed on the ground. “…Could I maybe… Go talk to mister Arret?” I asked, raising my gaze to stare at my father’s face with pleading eyes.
“Hmm? What do you want to talk with him about?” Tangle asked, raising an eyebrow.
My ears fluttered around wildly as I tried to think of an excuse. But after shaking my head slightly I decided to just tell the truth.
“I want to t- talk to him about the monster from yesterday,” I said. My eyes dropped to the ground again, too weak to hold my father’s gaze.
The unicorn stared at me for a moment, as if he were considering my words. But his gaze softened as he spoke.
“Sure, just come back before lunch,” He said, cocking his head to the side and smiling. “Oh! And don’t leave town,” He added, looking at me with a concerned gaze
I chuckled nervously and scratched the back of my head, feeling my ears swish around.
“I won’t, promise,” I said, smiling.
“Off you go then!” Tangle replied with a chuckle. “Try to avoid the market, your mother is probably there,” He added, bringing a forehoof up to his chin as if to think.
I nodded in understanding and gave him one last smile before setting off toward the town, whistling a happy tune. Truth be told, I wasn’t really planning on going anywhere near the marketplace, that’s where the… other colts and fillies liked to hang around. I never really understood what they found fun about just running around and talking.
Most of them were neutral to me, but there was a small group that always went out of their way to pick on me specifically. In reality they hated all the ponies that lived up on the hill, but I was the only one that they could really pick on thanks to my lack of magical ability. The worst one was definitely a little red earth pony named Rosey, she’d call me names like ‘earthicorn’, which didn’t make much sense since she herself was an earth pony, but it was still her insult of choice.
Arret’s little fort was in the very middle of town, meaning that I didn’t have to go through the market anyway, just had to walk a little ways around the outside of the town before making it there. I walked quickly, keeping my gaze on the floor at all times. it wasn’t that I was hiding from anypony in particular, but rather that I just didn’t like to look ponies in the eyes.
“Hey, Lexi!” Said a stallion’s voice from somewhere in front of me.
I looked up to spot the smiling, wrinkled face of Candle Wick, the town’s candle vendor. What few whisps of his white mane remained on his head poked out from under the rim of his bell-shaped hat. A long stick was balanced over the old earth pony’s back, with several clusters of multicolored candles hanging on either side. He wore a dark purple vest adorned with little embroidered candle flames.
“Mister Candle! Hello!” I chirped.
The stallion’s knees cracked loudly as he crouched to give me a half-bow, probably not helped by the amount of candles he was carrying. I returned the bow in kind, lowering my head and bending one of my forelegs.
“I actually have something for you,” The stallion’s raspy voice said as he dug through the candles that hund off to his right with his muzzle. “Ah, here we are!” He said before holding a handle out of the cluster with a foreleg and reaching down with his head to grab a pair of scissors from a pocket in his chest and cut the candle’s wick.
I took the candle in my forehooves and looked at it. It was a normal candle, grass green in color. I glanced over at the other candles that hung from the stick and noticed that this was the only green one, all the others were red, blue, orange, or just plain white.
“A green candle?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Why yes, I finally found a good green dye, and thought you should have the first one,” He said. “Given how you’re green and all!” He added with a chuckle.
“Oh uhhh…” I said, looking at the candle. “My coat is actually aquamarine, not green…” I muttered.
The old stallion’s ears drooped slightly.
“B- but I still like it! Thank you, Mister Candle!” I sputtered out, bowing my head in apology.
“It’s… it’s okay, Lexi. Have a nice day,” He said, passing me by.
I bit my lip slightly as I watched the stallion walk away and considered following him to apologize further, but I stopped when I saw him walk up to a house and knock on the door. I turned around shyly and kept walking towards the tower, not wanting to bother him while he worked.
Gallant Arret’s guard post stood in the middle of town, where it had the best view possible. It was a relatively large tower, made of sturdy wood and reinforced at the base with large stone bricks. While it was meant to hold an entire royal guard garrison, it had been remade into Arret’s living quarters after the brunt of the guard had been called back to Canterlot.
Three knocks sounded off the large wooden door of the fort, which slid open slightly. I heard loud echoing hoofsteps approach the door before an armored hoof pulled it open further.
“Ah! Young Lexi!” The stallion said, his mustache bouncing around as he spoke. “What brings you here?” He asked, opening the door completely.
The guard stallion standing in the doorway towered over me with a smile that was hidden by his mustache. He wore a simple gambeson with only some pieces of his armor attached to him. I always had wondered about why he never seemed to take off his armor. There wasn’t a single day where he hadn’t had his left foreleg encased in metal, or his chest concealed by the gambeson.
“Hello, Mister Arret!” I said, bowing my head before sheepishly looking up. “I- I was wondering if I could talk to you…? A- about yesterday…?”
The stallion’s jovial expression soured slightly, but his smile was quick to return.
“By all means! I was just getting the water ready for some tea, would you like to join me?” He asked.
“Sure!” I answered, smiling.
The stallion led me into the fort. I had already been in here several times, but like always, there was something new. The training dummy that Arret used to practice had finally taken its last hit and now lay discarded off to the side, broken into pieces. A kettle was whistling softly over a fire in the stallion’s kitchen while the guard walked over to a small cupboard and grabbed a pair of mugs.
“So, how’s the Professor?” The mustached earth pony asked.
“My father? He looked pretty well this morning, got right back to work on making his paper,” I answered as my eyes passed over all the different weapons that hung on the far wall of the fort.
Arret sighed softly in frustration.
“I told him to stay in bed to recover, but alas, he has always been restless,” He said, setting the cups down on his kitchen table. “I… I do apologize for being so slow to find you two, my legs can’t carry me as fast as they used to…” He added, his ears drooping slightly.
I chuckled at the stallion.
“Aren’t you like a year older than my dad?” I asked.
Arret chuckled in kind.
“Yes, I’ve also been run through with spears a couple times more than your father has, too,” He said, absentmindedly rubbing his armored foreleg.
I looked at the floor meekly for a moment, that was definitely a sore subject.
“Was the… was the war bad, Mister Arret?” I asked, slowly raising my head to look at him again. “My mom never talks about it…”
The stallion’s mustache seemed to deflate at the mention of my mother, and his face went slightly pale. He quickly collected himself, however, and shook his head slightly.
“N- no, not at all,” He exclaimed, striking a pose. “It was much like the jousting tournament that comes around every year. Neither princess wanted anypony t- to actually die!” He said.
“Really? I thought the bat ponies wanted to eat all of us…” I muttered, cocking my head to the side.
Arret opened his mouth to reply, but he bit the tip of his tongue instead.
“Yes, they are pretty savage… b- but Celestia still told us to capture them!” The guard stallion said, smiling at me.
“Huh… and where are they then?” I wondered, bringing a forehoof up to my chin to think.
A thick drop of sweat fell down the side of Arret’s head, but he still cleared his throat and replied.
“They all went back to their own nation, across the Celestial sea!” He stated, rather matter-of-factly. “So anyway… what did you want to talk with me about?” He quickly added.
The sudden change in topic was rather jarring, but I knew better than to insist when a grown-up didn’t want to talk about something.
“I was uhh… I was wondering about the t- thing that attacked me and my father yesterday,” I admitted.
Arret nodded as he poured hot water into the cups, throwing some leaves into each of them before setting them aside.
“Ah, yes, Thurkisa Crystals… nasty stuff,” He said, furrowing his brow in concentration, “What do you know about them?” He asked, looking at me.
“Not much, actually, Mother doesn’t let me read anything other than magic theory…” I mumbled.
“I see…” Arret said, eyeing my horn. “Well, they’re like a plague, they use warm blood to grow. The one you ran into yesterday had gotten into a cow, pretty fortunate, all things considered,”
I cocked my head to the side and raised an eyebrow.
“Fortunate?” I asked.
“Well, yes, they use blood to grow, so they need the creature’s heart to work and pump the blood around,” Arret explained. “If it’s a big creature, it will only have one heart. But there have been many reports of them melting several bodies together-”
“So every heart has to be destroyed?” I finished.
Arret smiled, bringing his armored forehoof up to ruffle my mane.
“Exactly! you might have the chops to be a scholar like your father someday!” He said with a chuckle.
I chuckled back, but my laughter died when I remembered the crystal in my saddlebags.
“So uhh… is the dead monster dangerous?” I asked, trying my best not to let my voice betray my nerves.
“Shouldn’t be, after a couple hours of not having any blood run through them they essentially turn into colored glass,” The stallion replied before whipping his head around to look at me with a raised eyebrow. “...Why do you ask?”
“I was just wondering about it, never seen anything like that!” I said, somehow managing to avoid stuttering.
“Hmm…” Arret grumbled, not entirely convinced. He shrugged slightly and turned around to look at the tea. “Well in any case, if you get any more questions you can just come ask me, your mother will have my head if I encourage you to sneak off into the woods,” He added with a chuckle.
“Will do!” I chirped back.
I shared tea with the armored stallion, but we didn’t talk much, as I was in a bit of a rush to get back home. Of course, I couldn’t tell Arret why, even though he had told me that the crystal was harmless.
After thanking him for the tea and the talk, I started to head back home. I just walked at first, but I felt myself slowly start to pick up the pace as I got further away from the town. I just had to get home and take a good look at this crystal.
And also because I should probably get home before Mother gets back…
I could hear my father toiling away in his little workshop when I got back, whistling some tune. Mother wasn’t home yet, I realized, smiling.
“I’m home!” I shouted when I opened the door.
“Hi Lexi!” Tangle shouted back.
I ran up the stairs and climbed into my room, almost buzzing with excitement as I threw my saddlebags onto my bed and dug out the crystal, holding it up to my face. Memories of how it had absorbed my father’s spell the day before.
How does blood go through this… I wondered, pressing the crystal against my window to let Celestia’s light shine through it.
“Ohhhhh,” I muttered aloud when I noticed the many minuscule channels that ran through the crystal, like a more angular version of a leaf’s veins.
Taking one of my forehooves off the crystal and to my chin to think, I noticed how the small movements made the crystal distort the world around it. The path that my father took every day for work became warped and incomprehensible when I looked at it through the gem. It almost seemed like it distorted the image further the longer I held it up to the sun.
I wonder… I thought, closing my eyes and focusing.
I didn’t cast any spell, since I didn’t even know the most basic ones. I simply… focused on my horn. This crystal had absorbed my father’s magic, after all, perhaps I could use it to draw out my own. A strange buzzing sound made my ears twitch, and my eyes cracked open slightly to see that the crystal was lighting up with a turquoise glow.
My mouth gaped open as I stared up at my horn, seeing the thinnest glow wrapped around it like a spiral. The magic made different shapes light up on the crystal, many strange patterns covered the surface and many facets on the inside as well. Thinking quickly, I whirled around and jumped onto my bed, covering myself with the bedcover and draping myself with darkness.
Once again, I poured magic into the gem, seeing the patterns light up, clear as day. They were circles, many, many beautiful circles, with lines joining them together into a jumbled mess. A mess that still held some beauty within.
I poked my head out from underneath the cover and spotted my saddlebags, which had fallen off to the side of the bed when I jumped onto it. Draping myself off to the side, I opened the satchel and brought out my notebook and charcoal, dragging it under the covers with me.
Under the glow of the crystal, I could see more than well enough to draw the patterns onto the paper. Every circle, every curve, every sharp angle. I was all but entranced by it, by its beauty. My head started to hurt slightly, as if a ball of cotton had been stuffed into my head just underneath my horn. But I kept going, sketching feverishly.
The page filled up, but I ripped it off and took another one out, covering that one in sketches too. A third page followed, and then a fourth. Halfway through the fifth, however, my task was done. I had sketched every single pattern on the gem.
I moved around slightly, immediately regretting it as my head throbbed. My eyes hurt horribly when I threw the cover off myself, all but blinding me with the sunlight that poured into the room. I walked over to my desk and spread out the papers, finding that they aligned surprisingly well.
“Huh…” I muttered when I noticed that the patterns weren’t just random circles.
There were symbols hidden among the lines. Or at least I thought they were symbols, small portions of the lines seemed to repeat themselves several times, almost identically. At first, I thought that it probably had something to do with the way the crystal grew, but the way the patterns repeated almost made it look like writing, inscribed with unfathomable precision along the edges of the circles.
I transcribed the symbols onto the blank part of the fifth page, but they didn’t make any sense to me. Raising an eyebrow, I took out another page and drew a circle on it, transcribing the symbols onto the edge of that instead. I cocked my head to the side, pulling the charcoal off the page and looking at it from further away.
“It… makes sense…” I muttered, feeling my horn start to buzz.
Everything around the page seemed to blur as my horn surged. A blue glow washed over my eyes, warping my vision completely. Panicked, I raised my hooves to my face, seeing two wobbly, distorted aquamarine blurs. I got off my chair and looked at the window, where I realized that the circle on the page moved along with me, burned into the center of my vision as if it was floating right in front of me. I couldn’t see anything other than the circle.
My breathing quickened as I shut my eyes and rubbed them furiously with my forehooves. When I opened them, however, I couldn’t see anything, nothing but the circle.
Pop!
My vision suddenly cleared as blue sparks shot out of my horn. An acrid smell reached my nostrils as small flecks of ash fell on my muzzle. I reached up to touch my horn, and immediately regretted it. It hurt horribly, sending a jolt down my spine that forced me to the floor.
I must’ve stayed on the floor for at least half an hour before the pounding headache wore off, letting me breathe properly. I opened my eyes, relieved when I realized that I could mostly see properly again. My flanks burned horribly, as if scalding-hot metal had been pressed into them. Moving very slowly, I brought a forehoof back to rub my right flank, where I realized my coat felt much rougher and matted than usual.
My forehooves then moved up to my face, rubbing at my eyes again. While I rubbed, however, I felt that my right forehoof was… slick. A certain coppery smell reached my nostrils, making me hesitantly open my eyes.
“Eh?” I exclaimed when I noticed that my forehoof was covered in blood.
Wait… blood! I realized, opening my eyes wide and whipping my head around to look at my flank, ignoring the headache completely.
A wide grin painted itself on my face when I saw my bleeding flank. It had finally happened.
I got up shakily and walked to the desk, ripping a blank page from my notebook and using it to clean off the blood from my right flank. My heart all but backflipped when my eyes fell upon it: My very own cutie mark.
It was a blue crystal, much like the one I had taken from the monster, with a glistening, purple spiral wrapped around it as if it were spinning. Tears formed in the edges of my eyes as uncontrollable laughter filled my room.
I dragged myself to the trapdoor on my room’s floor, still weak from the headache. But my joy pushed my legs forward and let me pull the door open.
“Dad! Come here!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.
My ears twitched as the back door of the house was slammed open. My father seemed to have forgotten all about his injured leg as he all but galloped up the stairs, coming to a stop just below the entrance to my room. His horn flared up and yanked the ladder down to allow him to climb up, almost launching himself into my room.
“Lexi!” He shouted once he spotted me, his eyes going wide when he saw the blood that covered my flanks and forhooves. “What happened, Lexi? Talk to me!” He shouted, lifting me up in his hooves.
I looked up into his eyes and smiled widely, hugging the stallion. His concern deepened, but when his eyes fell on my flank, it all but melted away into pure joy.
“L- Lexi… you got it!” He said, clutching my head against his chest as he chuckled in relief. “You got your cutie mark!”
“I… did it…” I mumbled weakly before nuzzling into my father’s forelegs and passing out.
Author's Note
If you are enjoying this story, please consider taking a look at my Discord for extra content, early updates, and other news surrounding my work!
This fic was commissioned by a member of my discord, and I hope you all enjoy it as well!
